


Jeeves and the Secret Society

by perverse_idyll



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Albus Is a Tricky Fellow, Community: snapecase, Crossover, Gay Bar, M/M, Severus Has a Crush, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29532666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perverse_idyll/pseuds/perverse_idyll
Summary: Bertie takes refuge from the dreaded Aunt Agatha in a public house favoured by the lavender brotherhood. There he encounters a sinister school-masterish sort who's even more out of place than he is.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Severus Snape, Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28





	Jeeves and the Secret Society

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2021 Snapecase fest.

***

Into the lives of all upstanding citizens an occasion must fall where we fumble the biscuit and end up owing an undeniable debt to mankind. Or in this instance, a kind man or two rather than the whole shebang.

No doubt it strikes you, on the head as it were, that I could say this of Jeeves on the regular. But the truth of the matter is, if I referred the matter to a court of law, that court would be forced to conclude that Jeeves is not like other men and therefore not a representative specimen.

However that may be, on this undeniable occasion I was reposing amongst my fellow Drones and feeling myself bulwarked and absolutely unbreachable, a magnum of the bubbly at my elbow, a biscuit balanced on the bridge of my nose, when a telegraph message was conveyed through the lines, tendered by the blameless hand of the butler. Having opened it with a carefree heart, I read it with my head tilted back at an angle calculated to best Boko Fittleworth's biscuit supremacy.

I untilted with great precipitation (if that's the word I want), launching the biscuit into the ice bucket while uttering the words "aunt" and "lunch tomorrow" in the tones of one who has heard the bell toll.

On the instant, up swirled a trousered young sprite like a veritable genie from a bottle. Or are lamps the standard model? I've never been quite sure. Whichever vessel he'd borrowed for the occasion, this sapling sprang to my assistance, perceiving from my horrified bleat and blanching cheek that my fondness for present company had been crushed to a pulp by a pressing need to ditch the Elysian fields of London.

"Steady on, Wooster," cried this keen and kindly gent. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be in the market for a bolthole, would you? If it suits the circs, I've got just the ticket. I know of a place where even aunts fear to tread."

When I turned with the light of desperation in my eye and the tripping tongue of too much fizz in my system, he held up a Pimsbury-Cuffington forefinger (for the genie's name had belatedly penetrated the waistcoat of dismay in which I sat stuffed and trussed, and I recognised the elegantly sanded digits of P.C. the younger).

"Before I fix you up," he said, "I must first enquire where you stand on the subject of the lavender brotherhood."

As I wasn't aware I stood anywhere on the subject, I merely goggled. He tapped me alongside the nose with the tip of a Pimsbury-Cuffington manicure. "Amenable? Yes, I rather thought you might be."

Taking my dazed silence for assent, this keen and k. chap plucked the telegraph receipt from my paralysed fingers, flipped it over, and on the reverse gave the cursive treatment to the promised location. To anyone else, it would have been no more than proof of inferior penmanship. To my bulging eyes, it spelled 'salvation.'

P.C. the younger clapped me on the back, I wrung his hand and vowed to champion his entry into the Drone-ish pantheon if he were ever in a biscuit-balancing mood, and we parted bosom pals. Pausing only to ring up Jeeves and inform him of my whereabouts-to-be, I buckled my wits back into the old bean and an extra change of clothes into my second-best baggage, and promptly shot off into the ether, the ether being the pastoral reaches of cowpats and cowbells colloquially known, to those of us in town, as the countryside. A martial drumroll and whiff of gunpowder in the distance hastened the shooting-off, as the short fuse the cannonball. For those were the twin signals of the approaching Aunt, to wit, the approaching Agatha, she of the Bertram-bedevilling nature and gnashing teeth.

It was the work of a mere afternoon to tootle down to parts unknown and take refuge in an establishment I prayed no aunt has ever menaced with her presence. When the host oiled genteelly forward – though I've never met an oiler to match the unparalleled specimen trickling about the Wooster home front – I produced the introductory scribble and was ushered upstairs to a modest situation above the social clime. There I napped, I freshened, and I chose my own togs in the full exercise of liberty enjoyed by a man who knows his valet will not be arriving until the 6:45 from South London.

Thus it was that I came to be camouflaged in a public house somewhere in West F—. Humbled by my rescue, I felt an unexpected wave of sympathy for beazels who are toted off in fairy tales and shackled to the rocky shores of lunch. As a nephew, I couldn't help but feel mine was a comparable fate. There be dragons, and then there be dragons, and none so fearsome as those to whom one is related.

Such was the buoyancy bestowed by knowing I would live to grace the bachelor state another day, and therefore eager to wet my whistle, I may have leaned a whit too amorously on the bar. I garnered a sudden salvo of interested glances, under the impression, perhaps, that I was doing more than polish the mahogany with my waistcoat. I give you my word – and everyone knows a Wooster's word is more precious to him than all the cow creamers in all the auction houses on this sceptred isle – that I was not playing silly buggers with the barkeep. Never be forward with the fellow who mixes your poison, is my motto, lest he decide to be literal about it.

Glass in hand, I toasted my audience with the exuberance of a condemned man reprieved from the Agathaean gallows. Multi-coloured plaids and ascots and waistcoats galore dotted the room, whetting the sartorial appetite. Most cheering of all, the view was mercifully auntless to the horizon.

Quite the hotbed of hospitality, West F—. Several dashing Hotspurs and Horatios sauntered over to spring for my next drink. But on my fourth refill, having remarked I was waiting for my man to arrive, I suddenly found myself left to my own devices. Nothing daunted, I raised the juice of the juniper berry to my lips and allowed my eyes to wander.

They didn't wander far. They were, in fact, arrested. They were very nearly condemned to spend the night in pokey repenting of those last three drinks. Appearing in my line of sight was a spectre designed to strike indigestion, or at least bafflement, into the heart of the stoutest man-about-town.

The visitor seemed equally knocked off his game by the dazzling array of waxed moustaches and sky-blue pinstripes, and was nearly done in by the excitement of so many dyed boutonnieres. He quested about with a critical eye, giving the room a once-over and me a gander at his profile. There was a longish quantity of hair right down to his shoulders that cried out for a snipping, the _tooter_ the _sweeter_ as Stiffy might say. He was also decked out in robes, deuce knows why. They hung in much the same vein as his hair, and just as blackly.

Poets can get away with hirsute jungles dangling from their scalps, but they had better be prepared to recite romantic verse to justify slapping fashion's cheek with their scurvy glove. Clearly this fellow wouldn't know romance, let alone poetry, let alone an Alpine hat and a pocket square, if Cupid himself swooped down from the heavens, bisected him with an arrow, and stuck a pen smelling of rose petals in his paw.

Now, a Wooster isn't one to judge a fellow creature solely on the basis of his grooming – although if Jeeves had been present, I daresay he would have cold-fished the offending garments and their occupant. He might even have looked upon the young master's own peacockery with a trifle less of the stuffed frog about the face.

Still, the stranger's presence stirred a pang of wariness in my breast. "Bertram," I advised self. "Own up. Admit it's not the whiff of mortician that puts you on your mettle, but the disconcerting garnish of schoolmaster."

One does not tootle off to scandalous boltholes in West F— expecting to bump up against a figment of one's childhood nightmares. Very Dotheboys Hall-ish in demeanour, this chap, by which I mean to say, Malvern House Prep School-ish. He had the air of one who hailed not merely from the wrong side of the tracks but the wrong side of the blanket, if you see what I mean. I hope I'm not being too wild when I hazard that the only way his family could have afforded a term of suffering under Aubrey Upjohn was if they kept a rich uncle stashed away in the attic, or were in the habit of dabbling in blackmail for favours.

The more I mulled it over, the more I was smitten with the certainty (possibly due to the bartender having laid on a generous ratio of g. to t.) that here was a lad, much like other lads who shall remain nameless, whose backside had undoubtedly been whacked, very much like yours truly's, by a prince of stinkers, and who had grown up to inflict the same unchivalrous whackings upon any poor sap who stood still for them. Or, one feels compelled to add, bent over for them, since there was a rather pointy stick being strangled in the stranger's white-knuckled grip, and it was doing a dashed fine impression of the celebrated rod that something-somethings the spoiled child.

He was clearly on the look-out, and all the Hotspurs and Horatios took care not to look back. I should have been quicker to follow their example, as this raven in human form spotted me giving him the lamb-ish eye.

I was seized with a sudden wish, in the absence of the miracle-working feudal spirit of Jeeves, to be less of an obviously solitary male. For it was Bertram upon whom this cove descended, and Bertram who must endure with nary a flinch the funereal garb, the drowned-rat locks no barber had scissored since the end of the Great War, the mighty hook of a beezer that could quite likely cleave my pickled loaf in twain. Visions of A. Beardsley and E. A. Poe cavorted confusingly in my upper regions.

The bally fact was, he was not my type, and it would be my unfortunate whats-it to let the blighter down gently. I didn't relish the thought of my evening being monopolised by flapping black wings and choruses of "Nevermore!" or proposals intended to lure me to the familial cellar with false promises of port. Indeed, he seemed on closer inspection to boast a very cellar-y complexion.

As said vision hove to, I fetched up a jaunty, "What ho!" for courtesy's sake. This little sally of mine increased the Poe-ish gleam and froze the lips midway between our mother tongue and some uncouth curse that bared an incisor. But all he brought forth, in a blood-curdling undertone, was, "What idiocy has Albus landed me in now?"

I thought "idiocy" rather a strong term to be hurled by a stranger to whom I had extended the "What ho" of friendship. "Why, old fruit," I informed him, feeling fair warning might go some way to prevent fatal misunderstanding, while yet endeavouring to be cagier than was strictly aboveboard, "you have landed in a place where men who enjoy their own company can be safely among themselves."

He turned slowly from the ascot-speckled view. As his glare crossed my personal horizon, I shuddered with the certainty that if my cheek hadn't already been as innocent of whiskers as an altar boy's, it would have been shorn to a blancmange, with perhaps a follow-up performance of my noggin being disinvited from my neck. 

Only the Roderick Spodes of the world have ever planted the doubt that I've put myself on speaking terms with an actual agent of decapitation. Even the ancient fossil, she of the biscuit-launching and nephew-imperilling telegrams, would simply have run me down with a roadster if she wished to be rid of me once and for all.

"And who are you?" said this walking threat to heads everywhere, with an abruptness that made my jugular – a part of the old _corpus_ of which I am rarely conscious – feel frightfully exposed. No reference to the infernal afterlife passed his lips, but "who the _hell_ et cetera" would have better conveyed the impression I received that he was furiously offended by my very existence. I have that effect sometimes, but usually only upon people who have known me for longer than five seconds.

"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, at your service," I riposted, nonchalantly hoisting the g. and t. to provide cover for the harmless fib. I had no intention, you see, of serving him in any of the capacities implied by our current establishment.

He muttered something in response, of which the only audible word was 'Snape,' if one can call that a word. I decided that until further notice it would suffice as the word for _him_ , especially after he sneered, "My _service_ ," as if I'd just hauled one of Gussie's newts from my pocket and presented it for a kiss. A dashed revolting thought, let me tell you. Not that I've ever personally laid lips on one (a newt, that is), nor would I, except perhaps on a dare (newts _or_ Snapes, to be perfectly clear), although I wouldn't put it past Gussie himself to get carried away (newts only, of course).

Perhaps it was wrong of me, but all the same I felt the sting. Or shall I say, the slime. Cast my honour among newts, and you goad the Wooster pride. I was pipped and no mistake. Keeping a defiant snort in reserve, I sidled right to the verge of buying him a drink so as to settle the matter once and for all.

Then my eyes took a quick spin around the room, and I came to my senses in a jiffy. However un- _preux_ the failure to pony up, I nonetheless refrained, reminded by the goings-on at a nearby table that swapping alcohol together could be perceived as a love token. That would have been a whale of a mixed message, what?

"You might still be of some use, I suppose," said Snape in a sullen voice, raking me fore and aft with a whittling glance that seemed to say he'd dealt with bigger blocks of wood in his time.

"I said 'at your service,' and I mean 'at your service,'" I shot back, for my dander was, as they say, up.

"A flaming nitwit," he grumbled. "Just my luck."

I was tempted to point out that his was not an approach designed to make a man's heart go pitter-pat, but the selfless impulse went the way of the unbought drink. He didn't deserve the benefit of Bertram's years of experience helping friends into and out of the soup – or being fished dripping himself from the bouillabaisse of near-matrimony by the intrepid hand and mighty brain of Jeeves.

Like pugilists to opposite corners of the ring, we retreated to our separate spheres, a peaceful interval broken only by the background hum of supping and sipping, and the squirrel wheel of reverie revolving within the Wooster hutch.

After quaffing my drink, I fetched my wandering gaze down from the rafters whence it had trickled off – if gazes can trickle – there to perch with a view to memory lane and its reminders of Jeevesian derring-do. As I re-directed the sozzled beam to a point nearer earth, I spied Snape fiddling with the chain around his neck.

This intrigued me, for if he were going to fiddle, I would have expected him to favour birch switches over antique baubles. I had one second to clap eyes on a miniature hourglass before he noticed me noticing, and we engaged in a competition of pretending there was no noticing going on and nothing afoot and the shooting of significant glances was a mere coincidence, before his hand clenched around the trinket and hid it from view.

It was this that put me on the scent. I deduced that I was in the presence of a clue, and therefore a mystery. I wouldn't have put it past this Snape to belong to the sort of secret society one hears so much about. "Right ho!" I assured myself, although looking back now, I would substitute "By Jove!" as the pithier phrase. As a keen consumer of the modern thriller, I know better than the average innocent bystander what happens to innocent b.'s who pop up in the midst of whodunnits. Usually they confound the PI or DI or what-have-you by leaving their corpses strewn about the premises, or make headlines by getting folded up in hay bales with one foot sticking conveniently forth to trip the local constabulary.

Well, I wasn't feeling particularly expendable that day. Otherwise why go to all the trouble of escaping the clutches of the dreaded aunt? Getting drafted to play the part of body number four for a mysterious stranger in West F— was not how I imagined the Wooster bloodline ending. Not that I thought about endings much, although there was that time Spode got it into his head that Madeleine Bassett and self were heading for the altar at breakneck speed. I thought about endings then all right, as one naturally does while being dangled from a brute fist. It gave deeper meaning to the word 'breakneck.'

Neck-wringing Spodes aside, I can say with some authority that in novels of murder, one is advised to keep mum. Never blather one's inklings of foul play to the listening ear, especially ears hidden behind beastly curtains of hair. Inkle in private, or do not inkle at all.

Turning away, I remarked, "Another round, old thing," and surrendered my glass to the barkeep, then extracted my cigarette case and lit a gasper. I hoped the stream of smoke would signal that our conversation was at an end. I would detain Snape no longer. He was free to biff off.

Barely had the breath left my lips than the cig. went out. I re-lit it. Again, the light died. Counselling myself to remain calm, I checked to see whether a draft was blowing from an open window somewhere, then repeated the process, and from the corner of my eye saw the stick twitch in the Snape fellow's hand. The glowing end of the gasper went dark.

"I say," I said, but it wasn't as if I could charge him with criminal powers of cig-snuffing, could I? A dratted shame, that, as I was suddenly rather keen to borrow his stick for a few hours and run up to London to play havoc with the chums. Although, on second thought, that might have got me tossed on the old bean. The principles of a private club may be few, but those few are very heavy going. Get between a man and his gasper, and don't complain if he gives you the old heave-ho.

Boldly, I put match to tobacco. "Do you mind if I – ?"

The stick vanished up Snape's sleeve. He could swish about all he liked in academic togs, but the slope of his shoulders and the discontent clouding the Snapish map put me more in mind of the boy who'd just taken six of the best than the master who rolls up his sleeves and doles out the discipline.

Having been that boy and lived with that boy's posterior, I found my stern resolve shaken. A cardinal rule of the ripping yarn is 'never become involved with Signs of the Hourglass and chaps who take fashion tips from Grim Reapers,' but nothing for it. My scruples had softened. We Woosters may have steel in our souls, but our hearts are like putty.

Before I realised what Bertram was about, I found myself extending the silver cig. case of letting bygones be bygones.

"Smoke?"

I could see by his scowl that Snape dearly wanted to puff up and refuse, but before he could get a proper fume going, some prickly thought stuck a pin in it, and down his fur went. Misery and general loathing streamed off him, remarkably like a day at Brinkley Court when Augustus – old Gus being a puffy sort of feline but a good egg overall – had been treated to an accidental dunking in the lake.

I felt for the poor blighter – Snape, that is, since I can confidently state that Gus doesn't hail from blighter stock – right up until all this streaming business was turned on me. I wondered if Snape happened to have an Agatha among his near relations, as it was a Look that usually prefaced the command that Bertram cease his Bertram-ness and go boil his head at once.

When he muttered, "Give it here," and accepted the cig., I had leisure to repent without having needed to marry first.

Matters turned a bit dire when he proceeded to lean alongside me at the bar, setting the old nerves a-jangle. The spectre of having to let him down gently loomed anew. But Snape merely continued to smoke and brood as to the manner born, the gasper pinched between thumb and forefinger in the style of a jaded young ne'er-do-well whose backside spends its days holding up disreputable London walls while its owner spends _his_ days dreaming of holding up posh old duffers with his pointy stick.

"Well, Snape old man. You don't mind if I call you Snape, do you?" I said, casting about for some neutral topic that didn't involve sitting at table and engaging in oscular activities. If oscular is the word I want. Sharing drinks, I mean.

"I don't see why not," he said, blowing a series of fantastical smoke rings, "since I doubt you'll remember this in the morning."

Unsure how to meet this sinister revelation, I galloped on, "Well, the denizens of my London club call me Bertie."

His glittering eye observed me sidelong, and I could chart the shape of various unflattering remarks pass loudly across his face.

An ashtray rather unexpectedly coasted across the bar's surface, and Snape stubbed out his butt. "I don't suppose there's the slightest chance you're acquainted with a man by the name of Dumbledore?"

I suspected he meant to insinuate a more incriminating acquaintance with this Dumble-whatsit than might be implied by a friendly tip of the _chapeau_. So vast was my relief at this proof that Snape was here for a prior assignation, meaning my personal bacon was off the hook, that my heart leapt like a fish o'er the fountain.

"No," I confirmed, as on a matter of such gravity I could not lie. I was not acquainted, and I was inclined to be emphatic about it.

"No, of course not," he sighed. "That would be too easy. Merlin forbid any of this make sense."

"Pardon me, sir," a familiar voice cut in just as I was about to commiserate over this Merlin bounder and his devilish meddling, "but I believe I may be able to shed some light on the matter."

"Jeeves!" I bleated, for so it was. I barely managed to refrain from flinging myself dramatically into my man's arms. Quite likely nobody in this establishment would have batted an eye at my flinging. Except Snape, of course. I suppose Jeeves might have batted one, or more likely two. The thing was, if Snape were indeed a member of some secret cabal, he would find it very hard going to get around Jeeves.

Snape felt the disadvantage and stiffened upright, stick in hand. That gave me a bit of a turn, as he was back to looking like a carrion bird with a beak full of murder. I rushed in with, "I've just been having a chat with Mr. Snape here, Jeeves. I gather he's supposed to meet a bloke who's a no-show, so we've been taking in the view while I waited for you to arrive."

"Indeed, sir," said Jeeves, as smooth as an ironed tie that had fallen into a bucket of starch. A fellow could wear an "Indeed, sir" like that around his neck and find his four-in-hand stabbing him amidships. "I couldn't help but overhear the gentleman speaking just now."

Snape had pretty quickly dialled down the menace level. He was eyeing Jeeves with sharp interest, sharp as in rapier points and cutting edges. He stabbed me with a glare, then Jeeves, then back to me again for another slice-and-dice. A black brow pipped upward like one of those thingies in French letters – accent marks, is it? Jeeves would know which one.

I succumbed to a proprietary twinge just then, not unlike seasickness on choppy waters. A surfeit of g. and t., no doubt. I had to remind myself that as little as Snape was my type, I was deuced certain he was even less Jeeves's. In fact, I'd wager my favourite pair of evening slippers – currently tucked upstairs awaiting the midnight toes – that Jeeves would sooner resign from the Ganymede Club than place himself at this blister's service.

Jeeves seemed to read the eyebrow all right because he gave Snape the ghostliest wheeze of a bow and laid on enough frost that if Snape had been a martini glass, you could have popped an olive in him. "I am Mr. Wooster's valet, sir, and it would be my pleasure, if you require it, to direct you where to go."

Both eyebrows made their mark this time, and Snape tilted his head raven-fashion, as much as to say, "I fancy a good leading stroke in a game, and by George, I'm up against a leg-cutter." I've no clue what the game was, but he was definitely back in it. The air of discouragement had flapped its dusty wings and flown.

"I've no desire to trespass," he drawled, although I noticed he kept a fighting grip on his stick. "Have your way with this young idiot with my blessings."

Well, I say. Or rather, didn't, but a bit of the rose hit the damask cheek. Jeeves had already perceived that neither frost nor starch nor force of fish-fed brain had the power to scuttle a rogue schoolmaster, so he increased in dignity before our very eyes, giving the impression of so much marble you could have stuck a pedestal under him and displayed him as a Michel-whosit. Angus? No, something Italian. It will come to me.

Meanwhile, the Spirit of Jazz was stirring all around us. The denizens of the dining room were kicking over their traces and gearing up to prance. In short, the brotherhood was abandoning culinary pleasures for a bit of cutting up the rug.

The faint hissing and popping of a gramophone heralded a familiar tune. The Wooster ears perked. The Wooster _everything_ perked. I nearly tripped on my wingtips bouncing in readiness for a romp around the ivories, a dash of Tin Pan Alley jiggity, the croon of a beazel oozing from the trumpet like warm butterscotch, which would surely have gummed up the works. My toes tapped, my hips jiggled, and I stood on the sidelines like an urchin yearning through the glass at half-penny sweets and turning my pockets out empty.

I heard Jeeves inquire behind me, "If you'll pardon my asking, sir, what _is_ it you desire from Mr. Wooster?"

"I'm merely trying," came the peevish reply, "to track down a patron of this fine establishment. I've been tasked with delivering a message from – "

Now, it's odd that a cove can yak away for hours and say nothing worth listening to, but let a sudden silence fall, and it pulls you around by the ears.

"A friend of a friend," he enunciated as if each word were some sort of devilish curse. The smoulder in his eyes wished spontaneous combustion upon the whole jolly lot of us. He enunciated onward, "A message of grave importance." A deep breath, and we were back to Gus and the dip in the lake. Smoulder dashed. Extinguished. Kaput. I halfway expected the poor fellow to start streaming again. "Although not one he saw fit to share."

This reminded me that I hadn't brought Jeeves up to snuff on my suspicions that Snape was a member of the murder-and-espionage club. Curbing the dratted spring in my step enough that I could walk a straight line, I sidled over. "Jeeves," I announced. "A word."

Snape's smoulder wasn't as extinguished as all that. "Oh, bloody hell. I am not spying on you."

I can't describe the shock that went through the Wooster system. My stomach flipped, although that was probably down to the fact that it was long past the hour when I'd usually be champing at the old nosebag.

"Spy? I mean, pshaw! Nonsense, old fruit! No one said any such thing."

"You were thinking it," he replied with a curling lip, more proof that he needed a few refresher courses in the proper way to manipulate the lips when smiling. Since I couldn't exactly deny I _had_ been thinking it, I hemmed and hawed, and Snape insinuated with a satisfied air, "Although you're right. I am a spy. Just not in the here and now. You can thank Dumbledore for that."

Well, it left me quite flat. I couldn't make head or tail of it. What _is_ a spy when it's not a spy? A bally lot of nuisance, that's what.

"I presume you want me out from underfoot as soon as possible, and I promise you, my sole wish at this point is to go back where I came from." Snape pinched the nasal cliff, as if he hoped he was having a nightmare and wished to wake up. I shared his hope, but when he lowered his hand, we were both still there. "But I can't do that until I find the headmast – the man in question and give him the news."

Any other time, I would have said, "What news?" but the tune had changed. It's hard to give a finger snap about shady dealings when the siren call of the Charleston is bellowing in one's ear.

"Jeeves?" I said, beckoning. You might argue a chappie whose reading diet consists solely of thrillers would be the one to guess how the plot turns out; but you would be wrong.

"I shall endeavour to give satisfaction, sir," said Jeeves, wafting another little ghost in Snape's direction. "But only if Mr. Wooster wishes it."

That got him a rather rummy once-over, conveying Snape's belief that Jeeves was a whopping great baboon for deferring to the last of the Wooster line.

"Oh, _rah_ -ther," I said, and I meant it to sting.

Our _tete-a-tete_ plus one was then violently interrupted by the tendency of inebriated dancers to go caroming off into corners. Even with tables pushed to the margins, there was very little room for hopping about, so the gents on the floor were having to do some fancy shuffling in place and wiggling around each other with much swinging of nattily dressed posteriors. It was inevitable that a few gyrating souls would come flying out of bounds.

I was impelled to seize Jeeves' arm so as not to be borne off on the tide. The music was sprightly, the mood gay, and the Spirit of Jazz battled to possess me. Snape billowed to one side, just managing to avoid getting entangled in a threesome. He presented a snarling profile, and the unlucky blunderers gobbled out apologies and hoofed it hastily back toward safety in numbers.

"Merlin's _beard_." From the way his stick threw off a few sparks, it was clear Snape had reached the point where introducing said stick up gentlemen's backsides would be the next order of business. "I was told Albus Dumbledore frequents this place. I certainly don't find that hard to believe, but I must have arrived on the wrong day."

"On the contrary," said Jeeves with the utmost serenity, turning his own noble profile to gaze off over the crowd. "If you look over there, sir, I believe you will find your quarry sitting peacefully at table reading a newspaper."

We all three turned like weathervanes in the direction indicated, where a double-breasted blue chalkstripe with a lavender shirt collar and paisley bowtie gently enfolded a strangely unmemorable figure sipping a brew and paging through the dailies. I kept having to blink to bring him into focus. I could make out a gingery sort of beard like that of a Viking who keeps a personal barber. Flowing locks and so on. Jeeves would have been at it in a trice if I'd let him off the leash.

It was the beard that flushed him out. I knew that beard.

"Great Scott!" I ejaculated. "It's Albie!"

I had to say it again at greater volume to be heard over the shuffling of shoe leather and frenzied horns. Albie answered my summoning halloo with a sharp flash of the eyes and a comradely wave. He rose from his seat – and kept rising, as he was quite a lanky old thing – before weaving toward us through the amorous scrum of twirling gents with a shoulder pat here, a tip of the homburg there, a swapping of familiar smiles and flirtatious words. He was positively twinkling by the time he washed up on our sombre shores, a bespoke-suited Venus on a clamshell of bonhomie. I was sorry to meet again in such unpromising circumstances, stuck about like a trio of potted plants at the lobby entrance, because in the right mood and in the right company, Albie is a corker.

"Why, Bertie," he said, grasping my hand. "What a sight for sore eyes. Somewhat unexpected, I admit, although I'm not as surprised as I should be to run into you here." He nodded and said, "Jeeves," with the warm regard due from one man crammed full of majestic brain matter to another of similar stripe.

"Absolutely spiffing," I said. "Always a glad day when I clap the baby blues on you, old top. Been a long time, eh, what?"

"Over a year, I believe," Albie said. "In France, wasn't it, Jeeves?"

"That is correct, sir," Jeeves said gravely, and they exchanged the sort of look that leads a chap to wonder what kind of cloak-and-dagger hijinks the interested parties got up to in the Parisian boulevards. I had the distinct impression that whatever c. and d. had happened in France was a whatever I should have had a say in. But then, everything looks suspish when you've got spies on the brain. The nagging feeling brought my heels down to earth, because while a hopeless chump like Snape was more likely to fly to the moon than get a flicker out of Jeeves, Albie was another matter entirely.

While all this reminiscing and reunioning was going on, Snape had stayed mum. I turned to include him in the general merrymaking, and as some dabbler in forsoothery would say — lo, what a change there was!

He was standing a bit apart with his stick quivering in his hand, eyes as big as those bally saucers someone is always on about when eyes are mentioned. He looked as if he'd kissed a newt, and the newt had up and turned into Albie. Poor old egg was too emotionally affected to make himself known to the very fellow he was here to meet.

Naturally, I stepped into the breach. "Albie! By a smashing coincidence, I was just chatting to a friend of yours. Did you know Snape was here?"

Albie turned around, and I was nearly borne away by a galloping case of envy as the sheer _thingness_ of his wardrobe accosted my eye. I absorbed the full impact and then manfully set my feelings aside. It's one of the prices I pay for having Jeeves en suite to every aspect of my life.

Albie stepped up to Snape, smiling with stupendous geniality, and I could swear Snape started to step back. His robes swished tellingly to and fro. Silly blighter was obviously overcome.

He also seemed to have lost all power of speech, but the saucers spoke for themselves, so Albie launched forth, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. — Snape, is it? I'm Albus Dumbledore, as you're apparently aware." Snape's map had gone all cloudy again, only this time more sunset than scowl, if you take my meaning. Lots of red splashed about and so forth. "Pardon me if this sounds presumptuous," Albie said, "but are we acquainted?"

Snape got a grip on himself and squeezed out, "No." After a second, he mustered another squeeze. "But we will be."

"I see. Rather confident of that, are you? Only — are we _more_ than just acquaintances?" Albie watched him. "Friends?"

"Of course not, you're the — " Snape seemed to think better of it and retreated back into squeezing. "No. Not friends."

"But you would you like to be?" Risking his appendage, he laid a hand on Snape's cheek, and the staring grew positively hair-raising. "More than friends, perhaps?"

For a moment I thought I'd have to send Jeeves for the smelling salts. Then Snape closed his eyes, blotting us all out, and somehow found the strength to go on.

"I'm here for one reason only," he ground out, and it was clear he'd combust soon if Albie didn't stop the laying-on of hands. "Do you want the blasted message or not?"

Albie leaned closer. "A message? Sent by whom?"

Poor old Snape was forced to tip his head back to continue gazing deep into Albie's eyes. Romantic, what? Personally I was dashed relieved I wasn't in Snape's shoes. When Albie continued to stand there like an iridescent lamppost that has nothing better to do than loom everywhere and cast chalk-striped light, Snape whispered, "You."

We were really getting into the meat of it now, secret handshakes and code words, and if I'd had a napkin handy I would have jotted a few notes. You never know what might help to spice up the next bijou.

"Severus," Albie said slowly. "It is Severus, isn't it?" Being somewhat forward, because as you've probably guessed by now Albie doesn't lack nerve, he dropped his hand from Snape's cheek to the hand clenched against Snape's chest. I fully expected the raven in Snape to administer a few bracing pecks with his stick, but his own talons flinched away, and the miniature hourglass landed sparkling in Albie's palm.

"Oh my," he said, tilting it this way and that. "How remarkable. So it's true."

He gave the hourglass a jolly thorough examination, much to the detriment of Snape's temper. The blighter was working up a scowl so extraordinarily ferocious that I could see why he'd bagged the smiling bit and thrown everything into where his natural talents lay.

Before matters reached a pitch, the rhythm of the music started bouncing through my limbs again. The Charleston had been put to bed, allowing the brotherhood a chance to cool down before their next exertion. Foreheads were dried, drinks knocked back, a few discreet nuzzles exchanged. The new number was an easygoing fox-trot sort of wheeze, definitely more my speed. Albie instantly looked keen.

"Well, well, this changes things," he said. "What would you say to a dance, dear chap?"

"I'd say you were out of your mind," Snape retorted in a startling return to form, whisking the bauble out of Albie's grasp. "Although I'm beginning to believe you were never in it in the first place."

"Severus." Forwardly — I've told you what he's like — Albie put a finger under Snape's chin and tilted his head up. Snape's eyes, which had almost subsided to the proper dimensions for normal beadiness, expanded back to a size that reminded me of kittens whose tails have just been stepped on. Not that I'm claiming Snape was, as dear old Dahlia's _Milady's Boudoir_ would describe it, cute. I daresay some things are physically impossible. But as another cloud of pink swam over his face, I realised that this self-declared agent of dastardliness was rather young. Younger than Albie, of course, or Jeeves (who is ageless), but even younger than myself.

"May I have this dance?" Albie said. His voice was teasing, but not in a way that would give the word "No" much traction. Without further ado, he towed Snape onto the dance floor. Snape tottered alongside, not quite like an obedient lamb following a trusted shepherd, and not like the same lamb to the slaughter, but with a little bit of both in his gait.

I lit a meditative gasper. "So what do you make of that, Jeeves?"

"They're wizards, sir," Jeeves said, accepting my offer of a smoke.

I assumed he was _de trop_ with the latest nicknames for lavender brothers. "Well, yes, I can see that. An odd couple, though, don't you think?"

"I don't believe they are, sir," Jeeves said.

"What, not odd?"

"Not a couple, sir."

I had my own opinions on that, as the wind seemed to me to be blowing rather strongly in that direction. Instead, I popped out with, "How is it you know so much about wizards, Jeeves?"

"My family tends not to talk about it, sir, but we have one in the family. A second cousin on my mother's side showed signs at a very early age. It requires considerable exercise of discretion, but one does learn some surprisingly useful things about the world."

I experienced another brief spasm of what I can only call jealousy as I recalled the flash of recognition that Albie had exchanged with Jeeves earlier.

"Well, perhaps you'll be willing to share some of this dashed usefulness someday, Jeeves," I said petulantly. "Some of us unwizardly types would be more than happy to learn a few things from the right source."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir," Jeeves said.

We observed for a while, me restlessly tapping my toes and Jeeves maintaining his serene outlook. Even revolving around like a top, Albie continued to stick up out of the pomaded waves in that lighthouse manner of his, and his beams kept the other dancers at a respectful distance like ships steering clear of the reef. Snape, contrary to appearances, was awfully clever at picking up the steps. Even though his entire being advertised his willingness to fall straight through the floor into a sulphur bath so long as he could take the rest of us with him, he didn't kick up at letting Albie trot him this way and that. No doubt his robes hid a multitude of gaffes. But the unavoidable Snapeness of all that beakishness and ghastly hair had a predictable effect. Albie shooed people off by beaming light in all directions. Snape, one might say, flew a pirate flag. Snape bally well _was_ a pirate flag. One could almost see the skull and crossbones, hear the distant echoes of cutlasses clashing.

The pair of them two-stepped around in their own world, if the world had been created as a circle of scuffed wood. It was a peculiar sight, and once more I couldn't help but doubt Jeeves' remark that they weren't a couple. I've certainly seen many a married pair behave the way these two did. If Snape tried to speak, Albie smiled fondly and shushed him with a finger to the lips. If he puffed up all mutinous and seemed about to bolt, Albie whirled him in a circle and gave him a kindly "ah, ah" sort of pat. Or perhaps "there, there." It seemed to me he counted on keeping Snape so dizzy the poor fellow had to cooperate or fall flat on his beak the moment he tried to break free.

Most incriminating of all, they couldn't take their eyes off each other. Any jury would deliver a verdict of hearts and flower. Or perhaps birds and bees.

Meanwhile, all this bouncing in place without actually dancing was enough to drive a fellow mad. "Jeeves," I burst forth casually, "I believe I might go take a toddle around the floor with the others. Maybe see if I can cut in with Albie or some such. I'm afflicted with the old tapping feet, Jeeves, and the Spirit of Jazz must be placated."

"I cannot recommend it, sir," Jeeves said.

I would have placed a fiver he'd say just that, and no Drone would have been reckless enough to take me up on it. Standing on my mettle, I firmly crushed out my cig. in the tray he presented to me.

"I say, it's dashed unfair to be stood in a corner. Sidelined. Penalised like a foul ball despite not having bounced once o'er the green." I bounced and tapped just to make my point, and then came out with the question that had been hovering in my throat for quite some time. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to, ah, join me for a brief canter on the boards? This is just the place for it, what? Since we're distinctly short of feminine options."

Jeeves folded his hands behind his back. "It is not the done thing, sir," he said austerely.

"Oh, come, come," I cried with hollow cheer. "Surely no one would object if you and I — "

"I'm very sorry, sir," Jeeves butted in, demonstrating how much the subject distressed him by deliberately speaking over me, "but it cannot be done."

Well, that emptied my sails, I tell you. For a moment, the willowy Wooster frame tilted like a waterpipe when one crawls out a window and halfway down feels the wall get farther away. Mere hours before, I'd been a man with a biscuit balanced on his nose, within hailing distance of the championship. I had escaped the deadly charge of the rampaging aunt. I'd fended off the insinuations of a sneering schoolmaster. Now here I stood, a mere husk, a washed-up remnant whose valet had put his foot down. A foot that would not fox-trot.

"This is too bad, Jeeves," I said while luckier coves stampeded genteelly before my eyes. I swayed this time not from disappointment but from the extremely limbering effects of four g. and t.'s on an empty stomach.

"I took the liberty of having the kitchen put together a cold supper for you, sir," Jeeves said. "If you would care to retire to your room, I shall have it brought up directly."

"You're only trying to tempt me from my chosen path," I said, standing on my dignity since, as a spurned man, it was all that was left for me to stand on. But the promise of a meal stirred a more primal appetite than even the dance. "Dash it all, Jeeves, you're right. Hunger calls. Cold meat and comfort triumph once more over the butterscotch blandishments of art."

"Butterscotch, sir?"

"Never mind," I said with a sigh, organising my limbs for a concerted sally toward the stairs. "But while you're at it, be sure there's enough for two. I've no wish to dine alone, so you'll just have to strap on the old nosebag and join me."

"Very good, sir," Jeeves replied, sounding not at all ruffled by the prospect. "Would you prefer that I accompany you up the stairs first?"

"I'm perfectly capable of navigating on my own, if that's what you're implying," I shot back with some spark. He accepted my rebuff in the spirit in which it was offered, bowed, and shimmered off in what I assumed was the direction of the kitchen.

I cast one last longing look at the dance floor and thus happened to intercept the dart of Snape's still-widened eye over the glowing rampart of Albie's shoulder. I won't say he showed panic at our departure, but there was a distinct light of pleading in the brief glimpse I was given of his map. He seemed almost betrayed that we, near-total strangers, should abandon him to Albie's embrace. Hadn't we already done our part by uniting the two of them, comrades in clandestine messages and wizardly liaisons? In any event, my neglected stomach very vocally anticipated a rendezvous of its own with a nice knuckle of cold pork.

Then Albie spun around, flashing me a wink, and Snape's stare spun with him. The greasy poet's locks flew about, as if the poor blighter went through life with a raven squatting on his head and the bird was so annoyed at being shaken like a bottle of pop that it was flapping its wings for takeoff. I imagined the frankly ghastly consequences of a bald-headed Snape. That cinched it. I was overdue for the fortifying effects of a full stomach. I left Snape to sort himself out and wended my way upstairs, only stumbling once or twice over dratted steps that seemed to grow an inch as soon as the toes of my shoes came near them.

A reasonable time later, after downing the victuals, I had to own that Jeeves had been right, as usual. He and I shared a delightful meal serenaded from below by the dreamlike strains of the latest radio sensation, like the warble of mermaids in a far-off bubble bath, their wiles too distant to cast a spell or a net or whatever it is you do with wiles when you're half a fish.

Ashamed of my earlier peevishness, I leaned back in my seat, patted the Wooster midriff, and announced, "By golly, Jeeves, you were right. This is exactly what the doctor ordered."

"I'm pleased to hear it, sir," Jeeves replied, rising statuesquely from his chair. "Shall I clear the table? I can inquire below about the availability of a cup of strong coffee."

"Make it Irish with cream, and it's a deal, old chap," I said, feeling at one with the world. "Fetch another for yourself while you're at it."

"Thank you, sir," Jeeves said, and trickled out with the detritus on a tray.

Firing up a gasper, I puffed in perfect contentment for a moment, then stood and took a shuffle around the room, hatching a plan as I strutted absently to the music. It had occurred to me as we plied our forks how dashed private it was up here. There was still music, what? And where there was music, might there not be dancing?

As I rehearsed the words to spring upon Jeeves, I heard voices in the hallway and took myself over to the door to investigate. If Jeeves arrived bearing coffee, the least I could do was not leave him fumbling at the knob.

I'd no sooner cracked the door an inch than I realised neither figure in the hallway was Jeeves. Albie and Snape stood facing each other, presumably en route to a room of their own. I was relieved to see they'd got tired of staring and were actually back on speaking terms.

Albie was holding Snape's naked forearm and _tsk_ ing. He'd removed his hat, and I remembered he, too, had a peculiar aversion to being sheared. His excess growth was rolled up and nested under his hat band like an egg.

"Stop trying to play me for a fool," Snape said suddenly, jerking back.

"Whoever played you for a fool, Severus, it certainly wasn't I," Albie replied, and then added in a quiet voice, "Hold still."

There was something about that voice. Snape froze, with not even the flicker of an eyelid. It made the hair rise. Albie wasn't even talking to me, and I obeyed like a green ensign in the Royal Arms whose spine gets locked in position lest he faint in front of his superior officer. I feared even breathing would give the game away.

Albie slipped his hands inside Snape's robes like a valet adjusting the line of a jacket or a lavender brother testing the waters. I thought it monstrously forward, but this was Albie, and we've already covered that. As quick as a wink, he whisked the chain over Snape's head and held up the hourglass so it twinkled back at him in the electric light.

"Thank you, Severus," he said amiably. "That should do."

"No, it will _not_ ," Snape exploded, and if you've ever seen a jelly being plopped onto a plate, you'll understand when I say Snape's voice was behaving the way a jelly wobbles. "This is entirely out of bounds, Dumbledore. I will not be stranded here — "

"Now, now. No need to panic."

To my shock, Snape snarled back something that would have made most gentlemen of my acquaintance apply their fist to his nose. But then, his reputation had already been hauled up before the magistrate of manners and Snape ruled no gentleman by all who had the misfortune to bump up against him.

Albie merely chuckled. It seemed to me Snape would have preferred receiving six of the best to being the sort of beastly fellow one chuckles at. I put it down to Albie's fixation on Snape's bauble. "You know, I have it on good authority these are only capable of short hops. A few hours. A day at most."

"You invented – _will_ invent – a linking spell that interlocks each incident in a recursive event, creating a chain of – "

"Yes, yes," Albie said. "Be discreet, Severus. Need I remind you I shouldn't know this yet?" He didn't realise how dashed close he came just then to inviting the decapitation Snape had wished on me earlier. "Was it unpleasant?"

"Unless you enjoy ricocheting around like a marble in a jar surrounded by five hundred other marbles that all happen to be reiterations of yourself," Snape said sullenly, although I suppose that's like saying 'Snape snaped.'

"That does sound reminiscent of certain dinner parties I've had the misfortune to attend."

"It may sound like a party to you, Dumbledore, but it's the only way I can get home."

"Well, I wouldn't suggest leaving just yet," Albie said, not that Snape showed any signs of charging out of there. "I mean you no harm, but may I also point out you have nowhere to go. Don't worry, we'll get you home in due course. Let me spend the evening studying this remarkable artifact, and then — " Albie swung the trinket back and forth like a bally hypnotist, Snape's eyes following in perfect time. Then he squirrelled it away in a pocket. "After that, if you wish, I can devote some time to studying _you_. With the promise that you will learn something from it and even, I hope, take pleasure in it."

Snape produced a cavernous snort, but after I'd witnessed him fold like a napkin before Albie's every whim, it failed to impress. "Are you so vain that you could possibly imagine I'd want to — " Albie must have dealt him his version of an Agatha special, because Snape folded so thoroughly you could practically see the creases. He looked away, muttering, "You had no right to rummage around in my — "

He was red and cloudy again, and I experienced the sort of _voila!_ moment I fancy happens to Jeeves a dozen times a day. No, by George. Albie wouldn't lower himself to the dreaded aunt's level. His was the light of the dear old pal, frothing with the milk of human kindness. Or so I assumed, since he still had his back to me and all that striped splendour was in the way.

"Tell me," he said. Even just lending an ear, I felt as if he'd patted me gently on the old bean. "Does the headmaster use Legilimency on you often?"

"Tell you what, Dumbledore? That you never lose the irritating habit of asking questions to which you already know the answer?"

I had to admire Snape's brass. By this point, anyone would be forgiven for thinking Snape a schoolboy caught in the act of impersonating a schoolmaster by the genuine article himself. 

"Severus."

Startled, I almost slammed the door. Albie's tone had given me quite the unpleasant kick in the mental behind. It reminded me of sitting in the dock and being scourged by a local justice of the peace.

"You know what it means to be at war, do you not?"

It was like watching a black beetle get run through with a pin. I don't hold with beetles generally, but it was no fun watching a fellow who'd already folded be stuck like that. Snape's lips formed the word "yes" but no sound emerged.

"We must all do things we might find morally repugnant. You more than most, I take it. But please believe me, your feelings for your headmaster do you credit."

Well, what could a chap say to that? Nothing. So that's what Snape said. Albie ran one hand across the poor devil's hair. I shuddered in protest but stood my ground.

Snape muttered something about it 'not being like that.'

"Pity," Albie sighed. "I can only conclude your headmaster is a fool." The milk of human et cetera would have overflowed several cow creamers by now. "Well, it's entirely up to you, Severus."

"How generous," Snape managed to sneer, "considering you intend to Obliviate me before sending me back."

"On the contrary, my friend. Of course, I'll take care to leave myself notes on crucial points of — contemporary interest, shall we call them. But then I'll expect you to perform a rather specific Obliviation on me before you go."

Whatever this meant in spy talk, it must have been big, because Snape got the kitten eyes again and another layer of maturity deserted him, like that dancer with seven veils who runs around dropping them or waving them and generally failing to hide anything behind them. At this rate, he'd soon look too spotty and callow to buy himself a drink.

"Consider it," Albie said. "Wouldn't it help to have something to offer on your return? Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, the advantage of knowing something he doesn't?"

Snape breathed like he was trying to shoot fire from his mouth. "He'll know. He'll get his 'report' using the same methods you do. And then it will be as if it never happened." Attempting to menace your way into being taken seriously is unsportsmanlike, but the Snapes of the world can't help themselves. "You see, you never really change, do you, Dumbledore?"

Unfazed by Snape's sneer, Albie put a hand on his cheek again.

A tread was heard on the stairs, and the touching tableau broke apart. Snape jumped away from Albie, instantly reverting to the hideous bane of harmless schoolboys the world over. As ill luck would have it, his darting eyes met mine in the crack of the door, and in that instant my neck reminded me that it preferred my head where it was, thank you very much.

Attempting to play it off as pure accident that I happened to be sauntering forth just as he glanced up, I swung open the door and risked an exit precisely as Jeeves appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Ah, Jeeves, I thought it might be you. Good evening, gentlemen. We meet again. Is that my coffee you have there, Jeeves?"

"Indeed, sir. Since the kitchen had plenty of supplies at their disposal, I prevailed upon them to let me bring up a carafe, a bottle of their finest, and a pot of cream."

Even though it would scupper my plans, I sang out casually, "Capital! Very resourceful of you, dear fellow. I say, would you two gents care to join us...?"

I'd meant to add "for a drink," but Albie had turned around, as I naturally supposed, to greet me, only his look knocked my train of thought so clean off the rails it left my wheels spinning upside-down in a ditch. I suddenly understood why a novice spy might give off such an air of desperately wanting to run away and an even stronger air of knowing it would do him no good. Albie's look said "I know everything you think you're hiding," and it rattled all the skeletons in my closet, even though I only ever use closets for my daily wear.

He was holding a stick, and it wasn't Snape's, since the cig-snuffer was in Snape's hand. Obviously these sticks were the true badges of the secret club. It sprang to mind that spy shenanigans between the covers of a book are a far cry from facing two coves with mysterious sticks and the power to make you feel your head is a pantry and they're hungry enough to steal all the best jam.

"For shame, Bertie," Albie said. "Surely you know what listening at keyholes will get you?"

"Listening? Who's listening?" I would have climbed atop my dignity again, but I was having a hard time locating it. "Well, never mind, Albie. If you wish to be alone, by all means, stand not upon the order of your going, but go! Who said that, Jeeves?"

"Lady Macbeth, sir."

"Really? How extraordinary. Damned spots and so on?"

"Precisely, sir."

Albie refused to nibble the Shakespearean bait. "I was thinking 'trouble,' Bertie, but regicide is certainly an interesting twist."

The Viking blaze of Albie's beard just then overshadowed the paisley in the rest of his soul. My skeletons started rattling like anything.

"Trouble?" I squeaked. "Oh, no trouble at all. Have a jolly evening, old fruit. Er, fruits. Perhaps we'll bump into you on the morrow. Well, Jeeves, what say we adjourn? The night is yet young and the coffee hot."

Snape, meanwhile, had gone back to looking not only old enough to order his own poison but to force it down other geezers' throats. Imagine him hunched over a cauldron under the full moon muttering curses in nonsense rhymes, and you've got the whole man. He would have fit right in with a tribe of batty old boilers-and-bubblers popping up out of nowhere like mushrooms on the blasted heath. Or is it blessed moor? When Albie said 'trouble,' I assumed he was dropping a hint to his chap in black.

Then Jeeves and his tray flowed into the space between us. Perhaps it was a passing fly that needed fobbing off, but I could swear he shook his head ever so slightly at Albie's raised eyebrows, even permitting himself a disapproving glance at the stick whose business end still pointed at B. Wooster.

Albie looked thoughtful, then sighed, "Very well. I trust you've got things under control," and tucked his stick away. I rather wished he would tuck Snape away while he was at it, but I gathered that would come later, in his rooms.

"I _am_ this gentleman's gentleman, sir," Jeeves murmured. I took the hint, waggled my fingers and carolled "Toodle-pip!" then bounded backward into the accommodations like a gazelle on the savanna.

Snape gazed after me, and I detected the urge to follow us in, crack open the bottle of Irish, and glug it all down in one go. Then Albie reached for his arm, and Snape folded like a wet brolly. I saw I'd been wrong to call him a raven. Shake out those folds, and up would fly a rather Transylvanian article. Fangs, don't you know. As Albie led him away, Snape exuded the sullen martyrdom of a student caught dead to rights who knows that after being closeted with the headmaster he won't be able to sit down again for a week.

The door shut them from sight. I mopped the brow. Jeeves busied himself with our digestifs, first whipping the cream himself and then wafting toward me with the still-steaming glass. We clinked rims in a silent toast and relaxed into our seats.

"Jeeves," I said. "Don't feel required to 'fess up if this is too personal. But here's the question. You wouldn't happen to be a card-carrying member of the wink-wink nudge-nudge club, would you? I mean, what? Spies and secret messages and all that. It's just that you seem to be very much in the know as far as Albie's concerned."

"Are you inquiring whether I'm a wizard, sir?"

I felt suddenly as if I'd put my foot into one of young Seabury's butter slides and up-ended on a sensitive internal organ. I'd assumed all along that 'wizard' was another name for what was going on downstairs. "Ah," I said feebly. "So 'wizard' is code for this secret society, then?"

"In a manner of speaking, sir."

I pondered the known facts. The known facts bunged a chalkboard eraser in my face. "Hang on. Didn't you say you had a nephew who showed signs at an early age? How the devil do you recruit a child into a secret society?"

Jeeves lifted his eyebrows. "I'm not at liberty to divulge that, sir."

"So you _are_ a wizard, then?"

"Oh, no, sir. It's true that in the past Mister Dumbledore and I have assisted each other while we were both about other business. But I am not a wizard."

"I feel compelled to say that if one could elect wizards out of the general population, you'd have my vote."

"That's very kind of you, sir."

"Think nothing of it." I stood up, sashaying a bit for courage. Jeeves took this as his cue to start clearing the decks. "Leave those bally things alone, Jeeves, and attend." I waved an imperious arm. "We've got music. We've got the place to ourselves. Now is as good a time as any to stand up and prove that what Albie and Snape can do, we can do better." I swallowed. "Dance with me, old top. Or tell me to go to the devil."

Jeeves ascended to his full height. "I thought you would never ask, sir," he said, and bowed.

The room seemed to spin for a moment, and I croaked, "Jolly good. Pip pip." I clapped my hands together, and the world righted itself. I felt percolated and tipsy and all in all rather unsteady on my feet. Perhaps it was the caffeine. Perhaps the whisky. Whichever, it was a corking sensation. "Will you lead, or shall I?"

Jeeves suggested a smile, very cat with the cream, and held out his hand. "Permit me, sir."

***

In a day or so, word arrived that Aunt Agatha, her plans to entrap the elusive Wooster thwarted once more, had lumbered back to the ancestral pile. Jeeves and I drove home to the metrop triumphant. Our dancing lessons continued in private, and although I'm not by temperament a boasting man, I'll go so far as to say that I made great strides. Jeeves is, as one might expect, a superlative teacher, and his fancier moves lit a fire inside me. There was much kicking up of heels, dipping and twirling, and two-to-tangoing.

Venturing forth one spiffing afternoon to retrieve a purchase, I was heading for home with a skip in my step and had just tipped my hat to the doorman when a screeching devil with hooked talons and burning eyes swooped down upon me and biffed my hat right off. I flailed in self-defence, and the wingéd attacker flapped away over the rooftops, serene in victory.

The doorman hurried over as I was examining my hat for dents, and it was he who scooped up the missile lying on the pavement.

"I've never seen the like, sir," he said, handing me a dusted-off tube of stiff paper. "A great horned owl in broad daylight! In London! Poor creature must be awfully confused."

"Well, let it be confused somewhere else than the top of my head. It's deuced unsporting of the local wildlife to poke holes in the haberdashery." As I settled the chapeau back on the dishevelled loaf, I spotted the writing on the scroll. "By Jove, it's addressed to me. That blasted bird was pinching my mail!"

"A good thing you foiled it, then, sir."

"Caught in the act and panicked, I imagine. Best be on the look-out in future for avian pickpockets." I fished out a note. "Much obliged, Fenton. Carry on."

Upstairs, I shed my hat and described the scene while Jeeves mixed me a soothing highball.

"And what does the missive say, sir?"

"Haven't the slightest. Rally 'round, Jeeves, and let's find out."

_My dear Bertie,_

_What a pleasure it was to see you again, you and Reginald both. I'm sure you're aware how very lucky you are to have such an unparalleled defender of English virtue as the inestimable Jeeves at your side._

_I'm writing to reassure you that our mutual acquaintance with the unspeakable hair was dispatched home in perfect health, virtue (such as it was) intact. From this you may gather that nothing occurred between us after our encounter in the hall. He and I parted ways with, one might say, no love lost and none found, either. He is already spoken for, and far be it from me to pose as my own rival. I'm rather more partial to blonds anyway. (Jeeves, if you're reading this over Bertie's shoulder, you needn't scheme to have it out with me the next time we meet. Bertie is perfectly safe, and I look to you to keep it that way.)_

_I must caution you not to refer to our unspeakable by name, or at all, or to chatter on blithely about the venue in which we conducted our liaison. One never knows who's listening at keyholes. Isn't that so, Bertie?_

_I take comfort in the fact that the two of you appear to be natural dance partners. Alas that the same could not be said of that young churl and myself. Merlin knows what his fate will be, but that's out of my hands for another 50 years or so, at least._

_I remain cordially yours, etc._

"That Merlin blighter turns up everywhere, Jeeves. Quite the Moriarty, with a smidgin of what's-his-name thrown in. Famous French fortune-teller. Nostril-something?"

"Nostradamus, sir. Merlin, if you'll recall, was strictly Arthurian."

"Ah, so he was. Round tables and Rule Britannia, eh? Why 'round,' I've always wondered – good Lord!" Albie's scroll had positively exploded, shooting sparkly annoyance far and wide. "Suppose that's my signal to zip the lips. Quickly, Jeeves, before we never speak of it again." I batted glitter off my nose. "What's your opinion of the Snape blister?"

Jeeves picked a single sparkle off his lapel and scrutinised it in the manner of the Melancholy Dane preparing to soliloquize over a damned spot. "Young Mister S. is in training, I would say. The question being, 'training for what.' He appears to be a pawn in a game being played for rather high stakes."

"A bit of a stinker, though, don't you agree?"

Jeeves hesitated. "While he was not a young gentleman I'd care to associate with, sir, I can't help but feel a modicum of sympathy for him. He was quite clearly out of his depth, although in my observation that would be true of most people in Mister Dumbledore's orbit. I'm afraid none of us would be happy in his position, and I fear the eventual outcome will not reward his efforts to improve himself."

"This suggests to me that the next time Albie rises into view, I should refrain from giving him the old hullo-ullo-ullo. I'm perfectly happy being out of my depth with you, Jeeves. With Albie, I'm not sure I could cut the mustard."

"A wise decision, sir."

The moment seemed ripe to produce my latest purchase, like a magician whipping an extremely unwieldy ace from his sleeve. "What say we give this a spin later, old fruit? Tonight, perhaps?"

He bestowed an approving glint on the vinyl recording. "Very good, sir."

"Still can't bribe you to give the Charleston a whirl, I suppose?"

"I regret to say not, sir."

"Can't fault a fellow for trying."

"Never, sir."

He lit my cigarette and floated off. I smiled after him. Funny thing, that. I've never met a fellow for making me smile as much as Jeeves does, even though he's not what you'd call a knee-slapper. But within our secret society of two, he was, more than the world will ever know, the absolute best wizard for the job.


End file.
